NCJ Number
120273
Date Published
1988
Length
34 pages
Annotation
Five meetings involving New York legislators, their staff, and community experts in Buffalo, Poughkeepsie, Binghamton, Happauge, and Watertown in January and February 1988 focused on the effectiveness of the State hotline for reporting child abuse and neglect, the State's child protective service system, and ways to improve them.
Abstract
Participants recommended a statewide publicity campaign to educate the public both about child abuse and neglect and about the appropriate use of the hotline number. They also recommended added staff to answer the increasing number of calls, additional training for both the initial screening and the subsequent interview, and the establishment of a State toll-free number for information about State programs. Other recommendations were that calls from people legally required to report child abuse be given priority, that local hotlines operate during working hours, that interagency coordination and cooperation improve, and that efforts focus on retaining child protective services workers and on increasing the numbers of foster families. Other recommendations focused on improvements in the court handling of child abuse and neglect cases. Appended definition of child abuse and list of meeting participants are included.